Growing Amaranth for Greens or Grain
Kelly at Planet Green writes about her adventure buying Amaranth greens at her local farmers market in
Try a New Vegetable: Amaranth. It’s true that calling it “pig weed” doesn’t make it sound very appetizing, but those pigs are onto something. Amaranth is tasty and easy to grow. Some varieties are grown for their nutritious greens while others have been bred to produce high yields seeds, which are tasty eaten as porridge or like rice. Still other species of Amaranth are grown for their exotic looking flower heads, particularly the old fashioned variety also known as “love-lies-bleeding.”
Amaranth is an easy to grow summer annual. In fact, in many parts of the country members of the genus grow as weeds as the name “pig weed” indicates. I wouldn’t recommend trying to grow it to harvest the seeds unless you have an exceptionally large garden, but the greens and flowers could both be pleasant additions to the home garden.
(Photo by Andedam used under creative commons license.)
4 comments
I planted some seedlings started earlier this year of love-lies-bleeding. Didn’t know I was planting edibles till I read your blog.
Another great thing about amaranth is you can eat the young leaves like spinach, but will spinach is very heat sensitive, amaranth can be planted all summer long without bolting.
I have been trying to get some fact about growing amaranth, how long does it take from planting to harvest?
That depends on the variety, but in general I would say 2 1/2-3 months. If you grow some let me know how it goes.
Leave a Comment